


Bad Day

by KCUrquhart



Series: Downtime [5]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Coping, Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:51:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KCUrquhart/pseuds/KCUrquhart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes there are just bad days. And Clint grew up knowing of only one way to try and forget bad days: at the bottom of an alcohol bottle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Day

Clint isn’t an alcoholic. He really isn’t. He doesn’t need to drink (and yes he knows that sounds like the line that every alcoholic uses) and he really could go his entire life without a drink if he wanted to. It comes from watching his father drink his life away until it had destroyed their whole family. The memories were always there in the back of his mind and they kept him from ever doing anything stupid.

But that didn’t mean he was simply never going to drink. Because in his line of work, there were plenty of days where the only possible way to cope was to go home and get absolutely hammered. Yesterday had been one of those days. It hadn’t been a ‘get black-out drunk’ sort of horrible day, but an ‘I really just can’t deal with this right now’ sort of day.

And the thing was, Clint wasn’t even sure why it had affected him so much. It was only a few small things that had gone wrong: his phone falling in the sink and dying, his quiver strap snapping, stubbing his toe on a table. Nothing huge. Nothing worthy of ruining his day to this extreme. Especially not to the point that it was still bothering him the day after.

Clint took another swig out of the whiskey bottle and stared out across the New York skyline. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but he figured it was nearing 3am. The last lights of the distant clubs and parties were finally being doused and the city was settling into that short span of time where it was well and truly silent. It was Clint’s favorite time. There was something magical about knowing you were awake amidst a sea of millions of slumbering people. It was a freedom that he couldn’t put into words. Like somehow this was the only time when he didn’t have to think about prying eyes judging him.

The whiskey wasn’t working nearly as well as he had been hoping. His thoughts were still more or less coherent and the world wasn’t even wobbling let alone spinning like it had been the night before. But last night he’d downed a whole fifth on a nearly empty stomach. He wasn’t even half-way through today’s fifth. His stomach was still queasy from yesterday’s indulgence. It was as close to a hangover as Clint ever got. Which he guessed he was lucky for, never waking up to a splitting headache.

A part of Clint wished that Natasha was up here with him. Drinking always made him talkative and way-too-honest and she was the only person he trusted not to judge him for whatever shit he may admit to. She was the one who laughed at his weird childhood stories and willingly had drunken philosophical debates with him. But she was on a mission somewhere classified. And that was half the reason that the last two days had gotten to him so much.

Natasha had told him that Clint should just start talking to Coulson as well. That Coulson knew Clint well enough that nothing drunk-Clint said could possibly surprise him. Clint had been tempted to call him tonight, his phone was still sitting like a lead weight in his pants pocket. But he didn’t want to bother Coulson. Not over something this stupid.

Clint groaned and gulped at the whiskey, ignoring the way it burned at his throat. He didn’t care how long or how much alcohol it took. He just really wanted to forget that the last two days had ever happened. He wanted to not think for just a few hours. To just become the hollowed out and emotionless shell, overflowing with stupid thoughts and opinions, that only alcohol could turn him into. He just wanted to pretend that there was no tomorrow steadily approaching. That there was no work to get back to. To be able to delude himself for a little while that maybe the outside world didn’t really matter and to hope that this sort of dazed half-life feeling could continue forever.


End file.
